A few weeks ago my new telescope arrived, a f/5.3, 12-inch Dobson from Orion Optics UK, equipped with a 9x50 finder and a Crayford focuser. At the moment I am adding a few extras, like the Argo Navis Digital Telescope Computer, a fan behind the primary, some flocked paper in some parts of the tube and a tube extension to prevent stray light coming into the scope.

I will keep you updated, and of course I will publish my observing reports with this scope in the next few months (weather permitting). I also will publish some technical details (mount, tube, mirrors) and some test results for the primary by Orion Optics UK.

On Monday the 16th of October, Leo and I got out to our new observing spot to have a look at Comet Swan. We arrived at 20.15 hrs local time, and the sky looked pretty clear and transparent. We could see stars right down to 15 degrees above the horizon, which is very good in our area.

Leo set up his 4-inch Takahashi and the Argo Navis. I got the 15x80 binoculars (with mirror mount) out of the car. I also got my 7x50 binoculars with me. We were ready to go within five minutes, and after searching for another two minutes we already had Comet Swan in both the 15x80 and the 4-inch Tak. Swan looked like a big fuzzy snowball, diffuse on the outer edge, gradually getting brighter towards the center. We could not detect a tail. Leo also tried higher magnifications with the binoviewer, but it did not really change compared to what we saw with lower magnifications.

After we looked at comet Swan for quite some time, we decided to do some good old deep-sky tourism for another hour. No serious observing with sketches and observing reports, just enjoying the wonderful views: M31 (Andromeda Galaxy), M32, M33, M34, the Double Cluster in Perseus, Stock 2 (the Muscle Man), NGC 457 (ET or Owl cluster), NGC 7789, M39, Albireo, Collinder 399 (The Coathanger), NGC 752 (and the Hockey stick), M15, M45, M81, M82, the Veil Nebula, Phil Harrington's Red Necked Emu, Kemble's Cascade, and probably a few others. It was great to just freewheel across the night sky and simply enjoy the views, comparing all objects in both instruments. Most objects were readily visible through both instruments, although some looked better in the 15x80 others in the 4-inch TAK. The Pleiades (M45) for instance, were very beautiful in the 15x80. The Veil nebula was easy in the 4-inch TAK with the O-III filter, but invisible in the big binoculars.

My favorite object for the 15x80 is the Milky Way in Cygnus. In my opinion this is one of the best sights through big binoculars, hard to beat. I simply enjoy scanning this area time after time with the 15x80 (field of view 3.5 degrees). I also managed to find Phil Harrington's "Red Necked Emu" with the 15x80, a real fine object for big binoculars or a 4-inch telescope, just like Stock 2 and Kemble's Cascade. I also scanned the area around Deneb, and I think that for the first time ever, I detected a part of the North America Nebula, however I still find this one of the hardest objects to "see"?.

At the end of our observing session we got a visitor, a young German gentleman who asked if he could have a quick look through the telescope. While his girlfriend was freezing inside the car he just enjoyed a few objects we showed him, and before he left, he asked a question, the same question I asked 30 years ago when I looked through a (big) telescope for the first time in my life: can you see the American flag on the Moon?

Around 22.30 hrs. local time we packed up and went home. We had really enjoyed this short session, and we also agreed on the size of instruments we used tonight. Something small and easy to setup beats the big guns if your only out for a few hours. The 4-inch Tak and the 15x80 binoculars were the perfect choice!

Yesterday I observed some interesting active regions on the Sun, especially AR 908. I used the 4-inch refractor and the Baader Herschel Wedge (with the Baader Continuum and ND 3.0 filters) for "white light"? observing and the Coronado PST for the H-Alpha line.

I tried different eyepieces with the 4-inch TAL: the Vixen LV's, the Zeiss vario zoom-eyepiece and a 32mm Televue Plossl. The best overall view I got was from the 32mm Plossl. At a magnification of 30x the granulation was at its best, even better than in the Zeiss zoom. I noticed that the granulation gradually fades away with increasing magnification. I also compared the Zeiss zoom eyepiece (25-10mm) with the Vixen LV's (20, 15, 12, 10, 9, 7 and 5mm). Although the views through the high quality Zeiss zoom were slightly sharper and clearer than through the Vixen LV's, I still prefer the LV's for their great eye-relief of 20mm. With the Coronado PST I only used the 15mm LV. This eyepiece showed me the most pleasant view, and higher magnifications added almost nothing.

The visual impression you get from Sunspots with the Baader Herschel Wedge and the 4-inch refractor is hard to describe. No image I shoot comes near the sharp and detailed view I get live at the eyepiece, but I always shoot a few images to document the observing session in my observing log. The image below was shot with the Nikon Coolpix mounted on the Herschel Wedge using the 32mm Televue Plossl. The camera settings were 100 ISO, f 5.1, 1/125s and 4x optical zoom.

Click to enlarge!

In the centre of the image you see the active region 908. The more or less pear-shaped group has an area with a few umbra’s that seem to form one large umbra in the form of a cloverleaf. To the left of this almost circular feature lie several smaller dark umbra-like areas, divided by one or two light-bridges, I detected at a magnification of 100 times. The whole group is surrounded by a penumbra, which is also breached by the Lightbridge’s. The Lightbridge’s are not very clear on the image, but visually they where absolutely visible, as where the inner and outer bright ring around some parts of the umbra / penumbra. There where no faculae around AR 908 or on any other part of the Sun.

In H-alpha, the darker umbra’s where very easy to see, but I detected no bright patches in the AR 908 area (plages or flares). I did see two large bright areas around AR 907 and AR 909 (the two smaal groups towards the right edge of the image). Between 907 and 908 I detected a long, snakelike bright area. There where only a few smaller prominences visible. Between AR 908 and the edge of the solar disk I detected two dark filaments.

After three heat waves and weeks of hot and sunny weather in June and July, August brought nothing but clouds and rain. Last night however, from 23.00hrs until 00.30 (local time) large gaps started to appear in the cloud cover. The sky looked very transparent, so I got out my 20x80 binoculars and the 85mm Zeiss. I first scanned the Milky Way in Cygnus with the big binoculars, and the amount of stars visible was simply stunning, indeed a very clear and transparent sky.

I suddenly remembered an article I read in Zenit, a Dutch astronomy magazine. There I read an article on observing objects in Cygnus with some wonderful sketches from Fred Hissink, a very experienced deep sky observer from the Netherlands. He had observed (and made a sketch) of NGC 6888, the Crescent Nebula. He used an 80mm Megrez 80II ED and an OIII filter. If he could observe the Crescent nebula with an 80mm, the Veil Nebula, also known as Cygnus Loop or Cirrus Nebula, shouldn’t be a problem for my 85mm Zeiss. I got out the 32mm Televue Plossl and the Lumicon OIII filter, scanned the area around 52 Cygnus and there it was, the Veil nebula. The eastern part of the Veil, NGC 6992-95, was clearly with direct vision, thanks to the OIII. The western part, NGC 6960, which is situated around a bright star, Cygnus 52, took a little longer to detect. After barely suspecting it at first sight, I could detect a small part of the nebulosity using averted vision and adding a little movement to the small refractor. If the western part would have been visible with direct vision, the whole Cygnus loop would have fitted into the 3.2-degree field of view nicely. The Cygnus loop has a diameter of 6 full Moons.

As I mentioned earlier, the whole nebulosity is called Cygnus Loop, Cirrus Nebula or Veil Nebula. To add a little to the confusion, according to Stephen James O’Meara, the eastern segment, consisting of NGC 6992-95 (and IC 1340), is also known as the Network Nebula, the western segment as the Filamentary Nebula. Anyway, whatever the name, it is a beautiful object and I can’t wait for my new 12-inch dob to arrive and have a look at the Veil! I can only say get out there and have a good look at this celestial treasure. For me, visual observing and the aesthetic beauty of all the different objects is the main reason why I’m into amateur astronomy, and the Veil is one of my favorites. Even under light polluted skies this wonderful nebula can be seen even with a small telescope and the right filter.

Below you find a finder chart and a more detailed chart that should give you an idea what the size of the object is in a 3-degree field of view (like my Zeiss with the 32mm plossl). Click on the images to enlarge. Both images have been made with SkyTools2 from CapellaSoft.

In the afternoon the Sun came out for a few minutes, so I quickly got out the 4-inch refractor and the Herschel-Wedge. There was a wonderful active region visible, AR 0904. The umbra looked jet-black against the "Green" Sun. I use the Baader Herschel-Wedge combined with a 3.0 neutral density filter and the Baader Continuum Filter. Simply beautiful. For visual observing of the Sun in white light, I never had any better views than with this fine piece of equipment. The image does not come close to what I really observed, but it should give you an idea. I stacked it from 235 frames from some video-footage I shot with my Canon camcorder. I used Registax for stacking.

I just got a preview-copy of the September/October issue of NightSky magazine. My “Clavius” close-up was published in the “Skyscapes” section. Click on to image below to enlarge. It’s a scan from the entry in the magazine.

If you are interested in NightSky magazine or Sky and Telescope, click on this link to get to their new website.

I have been observing the Sun for over a year now, using the Coronado PST and TAL 100RS (combined with the Baader Herschel Wedge). One of the problems I noticed during all the observing sessions was getting a good view of the Sun while you are sitting in the direct sunlight. I used to put a black T-shirt over my head, but I can tell you, you feel like your head starts to melt within a few minutes.

Two months ago I decided to try a big plate of Styrofoam. I just cut two holes in it with a box cutter, so it fits over the PST and the 4-inch refractor. To be honest, it works perfectly for me. Now I sit much more relaxed behind the eyepiece. The views are much better, and the white Styrofoam keeps of the heat as well. If I want to have a real good view through the PST, I still use the black T-shirt, but because I do not get direct sunlight on my head, this isn’t a problem anymore. My advise for solar-observers: get behind some kind of white plate, and of you are looking in H-alpha, make your surroundings as dark as possible. I personally get much more contrast when I view with the black T-shirt draped over my head and over the telescope.

Here are two images of the telescopes and the Styrofoam plate, and two images (from the first week of June) I shot during that observing session, one with the PST and one with the Herschel-wedge. Click on the images to enlarge!

Last weekend Leo and I went into the field just 2 miles down the road to do some deep sky observing. On Friday we just took our binoculars, because our major goal for the night was to see what this site (which we never visited before) had to offer. Although there where some streetlights visible a few miles away, the big plus for the site was that we had a 360 degree horizon. However, there seemed to be a lot of dust particles in the air because it was impossible to see any stars below 30 to 35 degrees towards the horizon.

On Saturday, we gave it another try, and we were in for a few big surprises! We drove up in our car around 22.00hrs local time and the Sun had just disappeared below the northwestern horizon. When we got out of our car what did we see: some distant streetlights, a fully lit church tower in the distance, some 20 to 30 red lights from a wind park and ……. a big campfire at the local “radio-controlled airplane” club. They had their annual summer-barbecue I guess.

However, the biggest surprise was still to come. As it grew darker, we saw that the sky was much clearer, more transparent, than the night before. Around 23.00hrs we detected the outline of the Teapot (Sagittarius), and a good part of Scorpius was also visible. In the northeast, Capella was already above the horizon, which we didn’t see until 00.15hrs the night before! I started to get really excited, and got the 85mm Zeiss with the 20-60 zoom-eyepiece out, and mounted it on the Manfrotto photo-tripod. Leo had his Sky-mirror with the 15x80 Vixen big binocular mounted. And what did we locate in Sagittarius with these small instruments under these “mediocre” light conditions in the middle of July? Well, it was amazing to be honest. Without too much trouble we spotted M28, M22, M25, M24, M18, M17, M16, M8, M20 and M21. (see the map below, click to enlarge). I couldn’t believe my eyes. Even the nebulosity of M8, M16 and M17 was easy to see, without the use of filters!

Image created with SkyTools 2 by CapellaSoft

On Friday night Sagittarius had been completely lost in the haze, and now there they where, a whole bunch of celestial treasures to be seen with 80mm binoculars and an 85mm birding-scope. We only used some red LED's, a German star-atlas and Sue French’s “Celestial Sampler”, to locate the objects. Oh, by the way, we also used the streetlights on the horizon as points of orientation, and the fully lit church tower in the distance also came in handy for reading the time

This proved to me that air pollution is much more an issue for amateur astronomers than light pollution. I had seen all the Messier object in Sagittarius on a star party in Austria last year, but I never had seen them all from my own hometown. Incredible! Anyway, what I also liked very much about the site last night was the 360-degree horizon. Around 00.00 hours local time we where in for another wonderful sight. The Moon came up over the horizon, and I mean really over the horizon. It was the first time ever for me to see the moon touching the skyline, no haze, no clouds, just a beautiful yellow-orange Moon, and on top of that, a set of big rotating wind turbines where visible as big moving silhouettes against the Moon.

Around 02.00 hours we ended our observing session with a few of our all time favorites, M 27, the double cluster in Perseus, the Coathanger, M 31 and Albireo. Astronomy in the suburbs can still be very rewarding.« Collapse